D7000 on 3B76 at Bristol c1961

[18B]

looking through the pics on Rail online and seen this great pic, http://www.rail-online.co.uk/p870200504/h2465909F#h2465909f

 

would anyone happen to know what where 3B76 went?

[The Johnster]

The loco is carrying a tail lamp, which suggests to me that it is dead and waiting for a pilot to move to Bath Road, so it may not be wenting. anywhere!

[jim.snowdon]

Or simply waiting for a route as a light engine to wherever, 3B76 having been its previous inward working. The fact that it is carrying an oil tail lamp is just as likely to be that the operating rules had not yet been updated to allow the use of electric tail lamps. Sometimes, railway rules can be very slow in discarding time-honoured custom and practice in favour of something more modern.

 

Jim

[62613]

Wasn't 3B76 the trials working for locos. newly outshopped/overhauled at Swindon? So possibly the end of her first run.

[chrisf]

If it is any help, D7000 was observed in the Bristol area on 11th July 1961.  It would have been very new.

 

Chris

[Rugd1022]

The 3C07 was the usual running in turn in those days.

[barrowroad]

looking through the pics on Rail online and seen this great pic, http://www.rail-online.co.uk/p870200504/h2465909F#h2465909f

 

would anyone happen to know what where 3B76 went?

Looking at an Ian Allan BR Headcode book for 1961. The Western Region 4 character headcode reads  '3' train's class; 'B' Bristol District and '76' denotes a Swindon to Didcot train. I note the headcode is on the rear of D7000 which suggests it relates to an earlier diagram for the loco. The Hymek looks to be at the end of platform 5? with Bath Road bridge in the background.

 

Robin

[John M Upton]

Lovely shot spoiled by horrible copyright protection watermark.  Surely there is no need for it to be either that big or that obtrusive?

[Martino]

Lovely shot spoiled by horrible copyright protection watermark.  Surely there is no need for it to be either that big or that obtrusive?

I think that's probably the point of it! I've had photos 'stolen' when I've put smaller, unobtrusive copyright marks on. I've even suggested to some folks that they can use my photos, free and without a mark if they'd just ask me first and possibly give me a by-line.

[Dunsignalling]

Or simply waiting for a route as a light engine to wherever, 3B76 having been its previous inward working. The fact that it is carrying an oil tail lamp is just as likely to be that the operating rules had not yet been updated to allow the use of electric tail lamps. Sometimes, railway rules can be very slow in discarding time-honoured custom and practice in favour of something more modern.

 

Jim

At the time that photo was taken, I doubt there were any battery tail lamps in use, other than possibly experimental ones. Rechargeable dry batteries were not really in the public domain that early. I don't remember seeing such lamps in widespread use until a few years after the Hymeks had disappeared.

 

Use of built-in red marker lights as tail lamps was (rightly) banned. The function of the tail lamp is to indicate that the train is complete. With a built-in lamp, one can never be certain if that is the case or someone has just forgotten to switch it off. 

 

John

Edited July 27, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[Titan]

At the time that photo was taken, I doubt there were any battery tail lamps in use, other than possibly experimental ones. Rechargeable dry batteries were not really in the public domain that early. I don't remember seeing such lamps in widespread use until a few years after the Hymeks had disappeared.

 

Use of built-in red marker lights as tail lamps was (rightly) banned. The function of the tail lamp is to indicate that the train is complete. With a built-in lamp, one can never be certain if that is the case or someone has just forgotten to switch it off. 

 

John

And how can you be certain that someone has not forgotten to take an oil lamp off?

[Dunsignalling]

And how can you be certain that someone has not forgotten to take an oil lamp off?

By definition, if the tail lamp hasn't been removed, neither has the rearmost vehicle. In essence, using a separate tail-lamp makes it less likely that a mistake will be made and more likely that it will be noticed if one is.

 

Use of built-in tail-lamps is nowadays permitted on multiple unit trains but, with a locomotive, the use of a built in-lamp doesn't exclude the possibility that there's a train somewhere that it was previously coupled to, with the proper tail-lamp still attached to it. 

 

OK, it can be argued that, over much of the country (controlled by modern signalling centres) nobody ever looks at tail lamps anyway and, once axle counters become universal, they may be regarded as redundant, until of course, axle-counter failures occur..........

 

However, quite a lot of the system is still controlled by relatively traditional methods, and the tail lamp remains the most fool-proof way of confirming that nothing has been left behind, just as it has for 150+ years.

 

In the modern world, we too often confuse new ways of doing things with better ways of doing it. It ain't necessarily so.   

 

John

Edited July 27, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[The Johnster]

I agree that there were no battery tail lamps in use in 1961 or AFAIK for many years afterwards, and with Dunsignalling that the presence of a separate tail lamp on a bracket, lit at night or during FFS, is the best way to indicate that you are looking at the rear vehicle of a train, which of course in the case of a light engine is both the front and rear vehicle.

 

But by my time on the railway, 1970-78, loco marker lights were used as tail lamps universally irrespective of whether the signalling system was power box MAS or traditional semaphore.  Tail lamps were still carried on dmus despite their being provided with red shades to convert their marker lights to tail lamps.  Moreover, the General Appendix (to Rules and Regulations) permitted the use of red blinds on Southern Region diesel and demu stock so fitted, without the need for a tail lamp, to indicate the rear vehicle of a train.  I ran into difficulty with this when working an excursion from Hastings to Barry Island formed of a pair of Hastings 6-car demu sets when the signalman at Barry refused to give the road on to the Island branch to a train he claimed was not complete.  An altercation ensued, the station supervisor was called, and the signalman was not happy to be informed (after I had produced the GA and quoted chapter and verse to make my point) that a scruffy young upstart new intake Canton guard with long hair and an attitude knew more about his job than he did; we compromised with my Bardic.

 

I would agree that the use of red blinds on the Southern (and off it) and marker lights on light engine movements of diesel or electric locos is not within the spirit of being able to ascertain that the last vehicle has cleared the section, but that's how matters stood in the 70s.  Tail lamps were used on dead locos whose brakes could be operated, either from the dead loco or by the hauling loco, and a brake van, with a tail lamp of course, had to be provided where this was not possible as a failure of the coupling would have resulted in dead loco being a runaway.

[lapford34102]

It's occured to me going by date+route that this might have been a crew trainibg run

Stu

[jim.snowdon]

Where the presence of a tail lamp does come in very useful is where one train is approaching the rear of another, which may occur as a result of permissive working, or a need to assist the train in front, or if there is still a portion of the previous train standing on the line. There have been instances, even i nmodern times, where the rear part of a train has ended up standing on the line whilst the driver has proceeded with the front half, oblivious to the fact that he hasn't got all of his train. All the signalman knows is that a track circuit has failed to clear, not why, so that if he authorises a following train to pass the protecting signal at danger, it is that train's driver who is going to find out whether it is simply an equipment fault, or umpty tons of railway hardware standing there in front of him.

 

Jim

[stovepipe]

There is no 3B76 at Bristol in the WTT ending June 1961, but most of the 3Bxx workings are ECS from and to Malago Vale and the other carriage servicing locations around Temple Meads.